Bad Sisters S2E1: Good Sisters
It’s been two years since the events of the first season of Bad Sisters — in which the five Garvey sisters conspire to murder one sister’s abusive husband. From oldest to youngest, they are: Eva, the striver (series co-creator Sharon Horgan, who also wrote this episode), the striver; Grace (Anne-Maire Duff), the martyr; Ursula (Eva Birthistle), the harried mother of three; Bibi (Eve Hewson), the eyepatch-wearing tough girl; and Becka, the youngest, who desperately wants to be taken seriously by the rest.
That they succeed in their murderous plans is no spoiler, given the series opens with his death. As each episode progresses, we see how arrogant, abrasive John Paul has wronged each sister in turn, as each has motive to join in the conspiracy to murder him, with a few failed attempts until one finally succeeds.
The question hanging over the series in the two real-life years since the first season is, what now? Repeating the trick, with the sisters conspiring to murder someone else, seems contrived. Revisiting the events of season 1 seems stale. But there doesn’t seem to be a third option, so this first episode is largely about the events of last season resurfacing.
Until they do, the Garvey sisters are doing quite well in the aftermath of John Paul’s death. Eva’s sober and has gotten into running; Bibi and her wife are planning for another kid; Ursula’s newly divorced (from the husband she was cheating on last season); and Becka has a new boyfriend (who, unlike last season’s beau, isn’t investigating the family for murder). And they’re all gathered for Grace’s wedding. She’s moved on pretty quickly and completely from Jean Paul, and marries Ian in a tasteful, modestly-lavish ceremony that lets us check in on characters old and new.
The old mostly comes in the form of Grace’s neighbor Roger, whom John Paul framed for being a pedophile to stop his budding friendship with Grace, and who’s one of the only people outside the family who knows the details of JP’s murder. He hints, at the worst possible moment, that he may have feelings for the bride-to-almost-immediately-be, and then later, that he’s having second thoughts about keeping the sisters’ secrets.
Roger also re-introduces his overbearing sister Angelica (Dame Fiona Shaw), who has a habit of barging in at the wrong time and saying the wrong thing. She also seems to think she’s far closer to the Garvey sisters than they’re comfortable with. Yet she’s not so awful that they’d want to murder her, so it’s not yet clear where she fits in.
But we have to have at least a little murder, as a treat, so apart from a cold open where the sisters (minus Grace) are steeling themselves to throw something locked in the trunk of their car over a cliff, we also cut away from pre-wedding festivities to see two men dredge up a suitcase from the bottom of a pond. Inside of it are the remains of John Paul’s father — as we discovered last season, one of JP’s many faults included murdering dear old Dad, dismembering him, and, well, putting into a suitcase and throwing that into a lake.
That puts Detective Inspector Loftus back on the case. He was grudgingly dragged into last season’s murder mystery and he’s no less enthused to be pulled off the golf course this time around, especially when saddled with young, overenthusiastic Detective Houlihan, who gets on her nerves but does seem to be genuinely good at her job.
Will the Garvey sisters’ web of secrets start to unravel? Almost certainly. Will they team up to kill again? It remains to be seen. Will it all be worth watching? Absolutely.
Stray thoughts:
• Bad Sisters is an adaptation of a Belgian show, The Clan, but that show had only one season, so we’re entirely in Horgan’s capable hands (and those of co-creators Dave Finkel and Brett Baer) from here on out.
• The episode, directed by Dearbhla Walsh (who also helmed the first three episodes of the first season), looks gorgeous, all crisp, bright colors, and the occasional striking overhead shot to set a scene. It’s a refreshing change of pace from the under-lit gray palate that dominates television in the streaming era.
• The beautifully shot interiors and scenery also does a terrific job of conveying the world the sisters live in. This isn’t the rustic, impoverished Ireland of Angela’s Ashes or the rough-and-tumble Dublin of The Commitments; this is 2020s Dublin, awash in tech money and uniformly tasteful and modern.
• The opening credits sequence — a bespoke Rube Goldberg device of murder implements and objects crucial to the plot — remains a marvel.
• Both Fiona Shaw and Owen McDonnall, who plays Ian, were previously in Killing Eve, and you could do a lot worse than poaching that series’ cast.
